It takes a Quiz Show Host

It Takes a Quiz Show Host: #Occupygezi and Culture Jamming aganist CensorshipTurkey. I’ve written about the abject failure of Turkish media to adequately cover the news of the most important protests in the country since the 1980 coup.

Many media outlets aired irrelevant documentaries and talk shows (talk show about legal definitions of theft, cooking shows, dolphin training, etc) while clashes spread to dozens of provinces and many neighborhoods in many major cities. In fact, CNN Turkey’s (owned by Time Warner and Turkish Dogan media group) airing of “penguin” documentaries during intense clashes (while CNN International reported news from Turkey!)

Became a protest meme. A prominent actor used his interview on CNN to wear a penguin shirt and desperate Turks tried to lure CNN Turkey back to news by photoshopping penguins into protest pictures: Perhaps one of the most striking attempts to pierce and criticize the veil of censorship on Turkish media came from a quiz show host, Ali İhsan Varol, whose “Guess the Word” program airs on weeknights. 47-The guide to laws: LAWYER. FreezePage. Zeynep : On a tree in Gezi. CNN Turkey...

Day after day, the protesters have leaned on Twitter and other social platforms to spread information and organize demonstrations, spurring the masses into action and regularly dominating Twitter’s list of worldwide trends in the process. Turkish phrases dominate Twitter’s world trend list In the age of social media, protesters often turn to social channels to push their cause, but rarely with the skill of those in Turkey. While the protesters’ widespread use of social media can be ascribed to many factors, the root of their social media skill and audacity can be traced back to a uniquely Turkish form of social media called the sozluks — a phenomenon that sprung up and thrived in Turkey years before Facebook and Twitter came into existence. The Sozluks’ Beginning Eksi Sozluk founder Sedat Kapanoglu. In Turkey, Media Bosses Are Undermining Democracy. In Turkey, Media Bosses Are Undermining Democracy.

Ali İhsan Varol, the presenter of the quiz show The broadcasting of a vocabulary quiz show on a private channel, Show TV, has been halted supposedly because of a question during the program related to bribery, a move which is being seen as worrying for the level of tolerance and the state of democracy in Turkey.

Show presenter Ali İhsan Varol, who tests contestants' vocabulary skills, asked one of the contestants on Dec. 17 what a person who takes bribes is called, and accepted “yiyici” as the answer -- a Turkish word that translates to “someone who constantly receives bribes.” The word has also become a euphemism to refer to corrupt officials. This episode is believed to be the reason behind the removal of the program from the channel after a similar incident during the Gezi Park protests when the show was moved to a different channel.
İhsan Varol'dan ilk açıklama - Hürriyet KELEBEK. NYT: Turkish Game Show Pulled After Hinting at Corruption Scandal - NYTimes.com. Environment Minister Bayraktar announces resignation, calls on PM Erdoğan to quit. Erdoğan Bayraktar (R) greets ruling AKP supporters in Trabzon on Dec 22.

DHA photo Environment and Urban Planning Minister Erdoğan Bayraktar announced his resignation from Cabinet and Parliament today, further calling on Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to resign to ease the turmoil over a continuing graft investigation that has gripped the country. Bayraktar joins Interior Minister Muammer Güler and Economy Minister Zafer Çağlayan, who also announced their resignations earlier on Dec. 25.

Bayraktar said most of the amendments on construction plans mentioned in the investigation had been made with Erdoğan’s knowledge. He also added that he received pressure to submit his own resignation. “With your permission, I want to make very short statements in the form of a press statement,” Bayraktar said during a live broadcast on the private channel NTV, while noting his innocence in the claims stemming from the Dec. 17 probe.
Zeynep : @RobertMackey Yes. Ali İhsan...
Prosecutor Overseeing Turkish Graft Inquiry Is Removed From Case.